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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Tokyo Day 3 - Diakokuya Ten-don

This is the ten-don that ieatishootipost ate when he went to Tokyo. Since it's pretty affordable, and we were going to Sensoji Temple (not for the shrine but for the shopping street), we dropped by to try it. Also, I was pretty intrigued - I've never seen tempura dipped in sauce before serving. The day started on a wet miserable note, and we trudged through Ueno park (full bloom but it was really deary) to look at the cherry blossoms. It was mega hard to take photos since everyone was carrying an umbrella, and it was really dreary weather.

We got to Sensoji Shrine somewhere around 2pm (cos we were waylaid by the 100yen shop), as well as the various touristy shops in Nakamise shopping street.

The Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) has a huge red lantern hanging under it.

Holy smoke which people will fan towards themselves for blessings.

Though it was so rainy and cold, it was an absolutely perfect day for ten-don (tempura rice bowl). We arrived at Diakokuya pretty late (around 2-230pm) so thankfully, there was no queue. Can't imagine waiting for an hour to get in cos it was raining quite heavily the whole day. We were greeted with the warm blast of the heater, and ushered into a corner seat, and given an English menu and hot green tea.

We both ordered Tendon #1 because it had "one each of prawn, mixed tempura and kisu fish"which comes with a tempura fish, tempura vegetable, prawn cake and a huge prawn. I don't know how much it costs cos there's a reflection on the menu I snapped, but I think it's around 1700-1800 yen? I think I paid 1950 yen including my soup.

We did have to wait quite a while before our food was served, but it was well worth the wait because the tempura hot off the deep fryer was delicious.

Humongous prawn - it's really huge and it's a pleasure to eat. I also liked the mixed tempura, which was many small prawns in batter. There was also a piece of vegetable which wasn't very memorable (like a small, non spicy chilli) as well as the Kisu fish, which is this boneless filleted fish.

Taste wise, it was just right - not too salty as I feared since the Japanese are very generous with their salt. Coupled with the fragrant Japanese rice, this meal is extremely satisfying.

I thought that the batter was a bit soggy, because it had been dipped in sauce, but it's quite an ingenious idea to serve tendon pre-dipped in sauce, especially for the working crowd as they always have to rush through lunch (more so since there's usually a long queue for this during the lunch hour)

Since it was quite cold outside, I decided to order the Kakitamawan ($320 yen, about $5 sgd), which is Japanese egg beaten soup. I think it's very nice to drink a hot bowl of soup in such cold weather - too bad Singapore is so hot all year round all I feel like doing is eating desserts and hiding in air con. The soup was quite thick, and came with lots of egg. There's a cute knot of fishcake inside too.English menu - our favourite phrase in restaurants/cafes was "Ego men-u" ;)

Interior - it was nice and peaceful, and had no other tourists in it unlike the jammed packed Nakamise shopping street. Service here is good - there was a table who started smoking next to us, so we requested for another table, and the lady ushered us to a closed section where there was no one else. I'm so glad that they were kind enough to open up a section for us so that we could enjoy a smoke free meal :)

The outside of Diakokuya - no queue at our unearthly lunch hour (about 3 plus in the afternoon)...

3 comments:

Hey mic, you can get tempura pre-dipped in sauce at Tenshin, Regent Hotel, the tempura shrine in Singapore. It's included in the set lunches which are of pretty good value. But I'll say go for the tenshin lunch set (not pre-dipped). It's the only place I go for tempura in Singapore.